The Journey Is Only Beginning
by LavenderAndTime
Summary: What if the Tenth Doctor fully regenerated into the Eleventh in The Stolen Earth/Journey's End? AU.
1. Chapter 1

_The Journey Is Only Beginning  
__by LavenderAndTime _

_Chapter One_

The very atmosphere in the TARDIS was taught with uncertainty.

The Doctor writhed in pain on the metal grating, requiring both Rose _and_ Donna to hold him down so he wouldn't injure himself further. Then again, even if he did injure himself by thrashing around, this would do little to change the situation. Jack knew his friend was dying, and he knew Rose, and Donna, and the Doctor himself were aware of this as well. None of them wanted to admit this, but he could see genuine fear sparking in that man's glossed eyes. While his physiology was alien, Jack had always admired how much humanity he had in his hearts, and now all of that was bubbling to the surface.

That Doctor, that beautiful man, he didn't want to die.

"What's going on?" Donna shouted, as he pulled her away from their friend.

"I told you, he's dying."

"Well, we can't just stand here!" she cried, her eyes wet. "We need to do something! We need to _help_ him!"

She started to rush back to his side, but Jack caught her by the arm. It wouldn't be safe. He could see a faint glow still lingering in the Doctor's veins. His stertorous breaths were becoming increasingly painful to listen to.

"No, we need to stay back!" he told her. "Rose, you too! Get back!"

Rose Tyler was crouched by his side, trying to mop the sweat off his brow with her hand. Her Doctor looked into her eyes with nothing short of terror. Her vision had been blurred by tears, and her hands were shaking. This couldn't be happening again!

"Please don't die," she pleaded. "Not now! Not when I just found you!"

"I- Rose," he wheezed. "I- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't stop it. I'm going to..." He paused, a sudden expression of panic crossing his face. "Jack," he said frantically.

He didn't say anything else, but Jack understood what he was silently saying. He knew he was about to regenerate, and he wanted him to make sure Rose was at a safe distance.

"Here we go," Jack said, and dashed forward to pull Rose away from the Doctor. "Good luck, Doctor."

"Will someone _please_ tell me what is going on?" Donna begged, as the Doctor exerted every source of energy he had left to pull himself up to his feet.

"When he's dying, his... er, his body, it repairs itself," Rose explained tearfully. "It changes. But you can't!"

The Doctor clutched to the side of the console, breathing heavily. "I'm sorry, it's too late," he said. "I'm regenerating!"

Then, he stepped away from the console and a violent golden energy exploded from his head and hands. Instinctively, Jack and the two women turned away. His arms tightened around their shoulders, holding them close. He somewhat wished he could cover his ears to dampen the whistling roar of regeneration, but he couldn't, at least not holding Rose and Donna. It took a few moments, but curiosity finally got the better of him, and Jack squinted so he could watch the regeneration. After all, this process was something that had dissolved into legend. Few had _ever_ witnessed this.

He could see his friend's face, almost completely obscured under the glowing energy. His mouth was contorted into a grimace, and his eyes were screwed shut. Before Jack knew what was happening, the Doctor forced his outstretched hands together, and bent over to aim the regenerative energy at the receptacle that held his severed hand. The energy bursting from his hands and head began to grow thin, as if the energy was running out, but at the last moment he let out a shout of surprise and was knocked backwards by an unknown force.

Jack was watching the moment his features morphed into another's, and to his surprise it happened as quick as a snap of the fingers.

The new man stumbled backwards, almost colliding into a pillar. He was wide-eyed and youthful, with somewhat shaggy brown hair almost falling in front of his eyes. He looked down at his body in shock.

"Doctor...?" Rose asked hesitantly, and stepped forward a bit.

"Legs! I've still got legs! Good!" he proclaimed, not yet aware of everyone else's presence in the TARDIS. As he gazed at his feet, still gasping for breath, his thin brows furrowed in thought. "Could've been worse, I suppose," he muttered to himself.

"Oh... my... _god_!" Donna exclaimed then, almost causing him to jump in surprise. "Just when I thought I knew everything about you, you go and change your face!"

"It's called regeneration," Jack offered weakly, feeling like even he was in a state of shock. He always knew what regeneration entailed, but he never imagined actually watching it firsthand. It was nothing like he thought it'd be.

The Doctor had vaguely half-realized what had happened, as he recognized his body was different, but his expression was almost one of horror as his confused neurons finally put everything together. He'd regenerated. He'd meant to avoid that; that was why he tried to siphon excess energy to his severed hand! Apparently, his efforts had come too late.

He startled his friends by hitting himself on the forehead with his palm. "Oh, Rose! Jack, Donna! Blimey, no, no, no, no, no! This is all a-" he massaged his temples wearily- "...a huge mistake. This wasn't supposed to happen! But, there's something else, something important..."

They all stared at him blankly, waiting for him to finish.

"Am I ginger?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

Donna Noble was slack-jawed.

"You're kidding me. You just completely changed your face, and _that's_ the first thing you ask?"

Rose stared at him, trying to speak. Her mouth was so dry it was hard to utter a word. "No- sorry," she finally managed. "It's still sort of... brown."

The Doctor looked like he was heartbroken at this. "_Really?_ I'm not even a bit auburn?" he protested.

"No. If anything, it's gotten darker."

He grimaced and flicked his hand in the air, as if swatting away this news of disappointment. "Well, that's rubbish. I've had brown hair for centuries now."

"Doctor," Donna began slowly, chewing her words, "_why_ exactly do you want to be ginger?"

He turned to look at her, with a gleeful grin spread across his boyish face. "Because gingers are so cool!" he enthused. "It's the rarest hair color in the universe, only occurring naturally in about 2 percent of hair-covered creatures when they hold two recessive genes for the MC1R protein on the sixteenth chromosome, one from each parent."

Donna blinked at him. She still didn't know what to make of this entire situation. It was all so _weird_. Sure, she'd seen a human turn into an Ood before, but that was different; she didn't know the man. And she supposed there would always be things that she didn't know about the Doctor, him being alien, and all. There was one thing that stayed the same for sure, however: he still talked nonsense at near impossible speeds. After a brief moment of reflection, she gathered her thoughts to form a reply.

"Then why don't you dye your hair _ginger, _you dumbo?"

Jack couldn't help himself, and sniggered. Donna had a point, and one that was made even funnier by the fact that her insult seemed to soar right over the Doctor's head.

"I thought about that once, but I couldn't," he said seriously, his hand balled up in thought at his chin. "It felt like cheating."

"_Doctor," _Jack interrupted his mindless chitter-chatter. "You said earlier that this wasn't supposed to happen? What did you mean?"

His smile quickly faded, dragging most- if not all- of his post regenerative insanity with it. He almost seemed somber now, and slumped down on the jump seat.

"I was trying to stop the energy from going all the way," he said quietly, wearily rubbing his forehead. "I thought if I could use just enough energy to heal myself, I could siphon the rest off into my severed hand, and then, with a pinch of luck, maybe I wouldn't change. Guess I was too late."

Rose stood back by one of the pillars, arms crossed over her jacket, staring holes into the metal grating she used to walk on every day of her life. Those days, those _happy_ days, seemed a lifetime away now. She'd crossed into dozens of universes in hopes of reuniting with the Doctor, and the moment she found the right one, everything she knew and loved had come and gone. Everything was different, and she felt like time had abandoned her. Even now, the minutes still passed just beyond her grasp.

Then, the glass and metal container that sat by the console grabbed her attention. A limp hand was suspended inside, cocooned by a bubbly liquid that was still glowing with the regenerative energy he'd poured into it. There was almost an aura of gold surrounding it. Ignoring the glowing aura, though, the hand seemed hauntingly familiar, like one she'd held many times before...

Her eyes widened slightly. "Is that your-"

"My severed hand, from the sword fight on Christmas Day?" the Doctor completed. Rose nodded hesitantly. "That's the one."

Her heart dropped slightly in her chest. If that was his hand, she realized, then it was the very last evidence of _her_ Doctor's existence.

At that moment, all of the lights in the TARDIS switched off with a dull hum. The Doctor looked up at the time rotor, and seeing it shut off as well, rocketed out of the jump seat.

"No no no noooo...!" he shouted as he dashed about the console, yanking levers and pushing buttons. Nothing seemed to work anymore. "It's the Daleks! They've found us, and shut off all our systems, like a sort of chronon loop."

"Well, what can we do?" Donna asked frantically. The entire TARDIS jolted as she said this. Everyone grabbed for the first pole or pillar they could find to hang on. The ship rocked for a few seconds before leveling out. Jack let out a breath of relief. Meanwhile, the Doctor seemed a bit dazed after this, having to blink to keep his eyes focused.

Jack leaned back on one of the pillars, and looked at his Time Lord friend. "What do you suggest, Doctor?"

Inside, he couldn't help but beam at the fact that everyone trusted he was still the Doctor. It was a comfort, after the last time. "Well," he began hesitantly, flicking a long strand of hair out of his eyes, "if the Daleks are transporting us somewhere, then we can't really decline their invitation, can we? All we can do is figure out _where_ they're taking us."

"There's a massive Dalek ship at the centre of the planets," Jack told him. "They're calling it the Crucible. Guess that's our destination."

"Now... You said these planets were like an engine, at the Shadow Proclamation," Donna mentioned slowly, as if he might not remember saying what she was taking about. "But what for?"

The Doctor looked to Rose, then. She looked ashen, and stood towards the edge of the group with her muscles clenched tight. The shadows below her eyes appeared more pronounced than usual, and her irises were wet.

"Rose?" he asked gently, taking a few steps towards her. "Can you tell us what it was like in Pete's World? It's set a few years beyond ours. What's out there?"

She swallowed, and after a brief pause, spoke. "It's the darkness."

"The stars were going out," Donna added.

"One by one," Rose continued, her shaky voice strengthening. "We looked up at the sky and they were just dying. Basically, we've been building this travel machine, this... dimension cannon, so I- I could come back. Anyway, suddenly, it started to work and the dimensions started to collapse. Not just in our world, not just in yours, but the _whole_ of reality! Even the Void was dead. Something is destroying _everything_."

Donna crossed her arms to shield herself from the chill. It was becoming increasingly cold in the TARDIS, with no systems online. "In that parallel world, you said something about me."

"The dimension cannon could measure timelines, and it's- it's weird, Donna, but they all seemed to converge on you."

"But why me? I mean, what have I ever done? I'm a _temp_ from _Chiswick!"_

The scanner started to beep. The sound cut through the silence of the ship like a sharp cleaver. It was an uncomfortable silence. The Doctor never stopped to notice how soothing the hum of the TARDIS was until it stopped.

He pulled himself from the jump seat and to the console, and it took a little more physical effort than he thought it would. On the monitor, a blinking red dot appeared inside the outline of a ship. "I guess we're gonna have a... a meeting with t-the D-"

He wasn't able to finish his sentence before his words caught in his throat and he almost fainted with exhaustion. Wearily, he stumbled backwards to the jump seat, Jack, Rose, and Donna in the follow. He fell back into the sturdy cushion, and with nothing less than irritation, coughed up a large handful of regenerative energy. It floated towards the ceiling of the time ship in swirling, dainty whisps.

"I can't go out there," he realized suddenly, staring at the energy that had poured out of his mouth with wide eyes.

"Why not?"

"Because if they got their hands on me in the state I'm in right now, they'd have disastrous power! Rose, it's like the pilot fish. You can't let them find me in here. I'll try to shield myself, but that's no guarantee t-that..."

The Doctor's words caught in his throat again. He was aware of his friends calling out for him- something that was very welcome, as at least he had something familiar he could count on. It was hard, regenerating into a new body with new thought processes and new quirks, and it was hard now more than ever. It felt like even his body was giving up on him. As one of his hearts stopped, and he felt himself slowly slipping into unconsciousness, he subtly realized there was one voice he didn't hear calling.

He didn't hear Rose's.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three_

"You can't let them find me in here," the Doctor urged. "I'll try to shield myself, but that's no guarantee t-that..."

He stuttered in mid-sentence, unable to speak. His mouth bobbed ajar, but his eyes were widely unfocused, and his breaths were labored. Instantly, Rose knew what was happening, and it terrified her. It was just like the last time. Something had gone wrong with his regeneration, at the worst possible moment in their lives: when the entire universe was at stake.

"Doctor? Doctor!" Jack said, gently shaking his shoulder. "Try to stay awake! Fight it!

"What's wrong with him? What happened?" Donna asked frantically, hovering over his other shoulder.

"He poured nearly half of his regeneration energy into his hand, I'm sure that's bound to have an effect," Jack said, thinking out loud.

The Doctor wildly searched the console room one last time as he gasped for breath. His failing body had tossed him into a helpless, vulnerable state, where his soul was laid bare for all to see. The glassy, distant look in his eyes spoke volumes. For once in his life, the Time Lord was completely terrified. His chest rose and fell a few more times before he fell unconscious. His head lolled back, causing that long strand of hair to flip away from his face.

Donna went completely pale.

"Doctor?" she whispered, her voice shaking. There was no response. Tears built up at the corners of her eyes, glistening like wet diamonds. She rested her head on his chest, and to her horror only heard one heart beating. "Oh god, no..."

"Is he alive?" Jack asked, crossing towards her.

She looked up. "One heart is beating. _Only _one."

"Hold on... You were with the Doctor the last time he regenerated, you've got the most firsthand experience out of all of us," the former time agent pointed out suddenly, nodding towards Rose. "Know 'bout anything that might help him now?"

"The last time he changed, he was burning with a fever for hours," Rose said. "Even if there _is_ somethin' we can do, we simply don't have the time."

The TARDIS became eerily silent with that grim revelation. The trio stared at each other with drawn faces, because after all of the wonderful, frightening, and inspiring sights they had seen, traveling through the stars, nobody wanted to admit the truth that was looming over them like the darkening horizon. The Doctor's life was in grave danger, and right now, there wasn't anything they could do to help him.

"Well, time or not, we should make our move quickly," Jack said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "We either have to escape, or step out there. Rose, do you still have your dimension jump?"

"Yeah. It needs another twenty minutes, though, we can't use it."

"Wouldn't we be safe in here?" Donna asked, gesturing around the ship.

"They're _Daleks_," Rose said, her mind calling up all sorts of terrible memories at their very name. "Do we really want to take that chance?" She scrunched her lip up to her nose as she thought. Her hands clasped together hopefully, she turned to Jack, who had leaned over to check his gun, which he'd set on the floor of the TARDIS earlier. "What about your vortex manipulator?"

"Went down with the power loss. Sorry, Rosie."

A flicker of a smile crossed her lips for just a moment, as she remembered with fondness Jack's penchant for calling her Rosie. Back in the good ol' days...

"Okay," she breathed, trying to retain a certain level of calmness, though the worry was obvious in her stiff body language. "I think our best bet is outside, then."

"We'll have to leave him behind," Jack pointed out, glancing towards the unconscious Doctor on the jump seat.

"That's safer for him. He's unconscious, and he said he couldn't go out there anyways." Her friend gave a short nod, and immediately started to advance towards the gun he'd brought on the ship, the one he used to shoot the Dalek down. "I'd leave your gun here, if I were you. Dalek rule on Earth is strict enough, here they'd probably shoot us on sight!"

With a dramatic sigh, he set his prized gun back on the floor. He and Rose began cautiously walking to the doors of the TARDIS, actively listening for signs of any raucous commotion outside.

Donna, meanwhile, was in her own world. She'd been half listening to Rose and Jack as they sorted through their options, but there was this pulsing, hypnotizing beat echoing in her head:

_Thu-thump... thu-thump... thu-thump..._

It was a single heartbeat.

Her mind wandered for a moment as she considered the thought that _maybe_, just maybe, she was only worrying about the Doctor, and how he only had one heart working. The thing was, she'd heard this pounding earlier as well, back at the Shadow Proclamation. It couldn't be that simple.

As she thought on this, Rose and Jack opened the doors and slowly moved out. What existed out there was enough to immediately snap her back to real life. Those metal machines, those Daleks, they were everywhere! They were spread in the air like a raging disease, only living to hover from one post to the next. Donna frowned, as she realized how meaningless and regulated the life of a Dalek was. She was aware the Doctor saw them as brutal killing machines, but didn't one ever want to _experience_ something? Was there any potential for a Dalek to grow in life, or to love?

She'd probably never know.

"Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks!" a large red Dalek on the sidelines prompted. The other Daleks quickly took up the ominous chant.

"Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks! Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks!"

Donna was just about to make tentative steps exiting the TARDIS, when that mysterious heartbeat began pounding in her ears again. This time, she found herself unable to move. She was pined in her spot. All she could do was gaze blankly ahead, and hear that rhythm drumming endlessly.

_Thu-thump... thu-thump... thu-thump... thu-thump..._

"Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks! Daleks reign supreme. All hail the Daleks!"


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four_

The outer shell of the red commanding Dalek was waxed so clean, Rose could almost see her warped reflection in it.

"Where is the Doctor?" it demanded, its eye stalk swiveling back and forth.

Her mind raced. Why the hell didn't she think of this? Who did the Daleks go to all the trouble of dragging the TARDIS here to capture? They wanted the Doctor, not her, not Jack. Without the Doctor present, the vile creatures would have no logical reason to spare them. They couldn't be used as bargaining chips. The two of them would be cannon fodder.

Unless...

A daring, dangerous idea popped up in her mind suddenly. If she were honest with herself, it was probably a terrible idea, and almost definitely doomed to failure. However, if she played her cards straight, it just might allow Jack and her a few more minutes to live, and she knew well that a few minutes could make a universe-changing difference. Anything could happen in a minute's time.

Before Jack could step forward to reply to the Dalek's question, she pushed in front.

"_I'm _the Doctor," she boldly declared. The second she did, she slowly began having doubts about her decision. The last time she'd played at "being the Doctor", so to speak, she'd almost gotten herself, Mickey, and Harriet Jones killed by the Sycorax. This time, with the fate of the entire universe at stake, she'd just have to be better. There was certainly no turning back now, not from the height of the new Dalek Empire.

In the corner of her eyes, she saw confusion flutter over Jack's face. This expression was one she'd rarely seen on him, as Jack was the sort of man who liked to know the plan and take charge. She shot a firm nod towards him, one that _hopefully _expressed her wish for him to trust her and play along.

"Impossible!" the Dalek scoffed, if such emotions could be expressed in robotic monotone. "All the Doctor's forms have been recorded. Yours does not match any in our banks!"

_Damn, this is going to be difficult, _Rose thought, and fought to keep from biting her lip like she often did when nervous. The Doctor rarely seemed nervous or scared when facing enemies and fighting monsters. No, he always stood strong, ready at a moment's notice with his cheeky commentary and a clever plan, even around the Daleks. To be honest, she hadn't a clue how he managed it. All she knew was, she could use a bit of his bravery now.

"One of your Dalek scouts shot me on the streets," she insisted, attempting to imitate the suave manner in which the Doctor dealt with his adversaries the best she could. "I regenerated, in the TARDIS."

"Conform claims!" the commanding Dalek said.

Immediately, a thin screen appeared towards the ceiling. The display flickered, before changing to a video of the Doctor, _her_ Doctor, about to get shot, before everything went so wrong. The footage was bathed in blue, recorded from the perspective of the Dalek that killed him. She watched with bleary eyes as the Dalek's laser skimmed the left side of his body, knocking him to the asphalt. Mere seconds later, the transmission turned to static, probably when Jack shot the Dalek with _his_ weapon.

She bit her tongue to keep from letting tears roll down her cheek, trying to stay strong. Jack and her glanced at each other briefly. He nodded, just once, a sign that he trusted her. It was a simple action, but enough to encourage her to keep going.

"Confirmed. The Doctor was shot minutes ago. We have records of male Time Lords regenerating into females. You are the Doctor."

"Yes," Rose agreed, her voice quickly picking up strength. "Yes, I am the Doctor, but never mind that- New body, and all... What d'ya think?"

From inside the TARDIS, Donna watched Rose turn in a circle, her hands outstretched with bravado. She didn't know what was going on anymore- every time she tried to concentrate on the events unfolding in front of her very eyes, she'd get a terrible migraine, and she'd hear that heartbeat pound in her ears. Her blurry view of Jack, Rose, and the Daleks started to blend until it was one entity, one shape. She knew something was wrong. Her muscles ached to move, to step out of the TARDIS, but for some reason, her body wouldn't let her.

"Doctor," Jack called for Rose, glancing worriedly at Donna. She either didn't hear him, or wasn't used to responding to the name 'Doctor' yet. _"Doctor,_" he said again, slightly stressing the name to get her attention. "Donna's still inside."

"Donna?" she said hesitantly, turning to look at her. She was still standing in the doorway, staring into the distance with a blank glimmer in her eyes and her mouth slightly agape. "You coming, or not?"

For a minuscule moment, it seemed as if Donna heard her, as she snapped out of her shocked stupor and looked directly at her. But before she could make her move and step out of the TARDIS, the doors slammed shut. Rose immediately ran towards the ship.

"What have you done?" her muffled voice shouted from inside.

"We didn't do anything!" she replied, pushing against the two wooden doors with the palms of her hand.

"Oi! Oi, I'm not staying behind!"

"Just- try pulling the doors again! Really hard!"

"I've tried, it _isn't working_!" she bellowed.

Breathlessly, Rose pulled the chain with her key on it from under her shirt. She jammed it in the lock, and tried to turn it, but something was stopping it from turning all the way. Oh, what she would do to have the Doctor's sonic screwdriver handy...

"Donna, stay calm! Is it bolted from the inside?" she asked.

_"There's no bolt!"_

Rose's mind rapidly moved through all her options. This had to be the work of the Daleks. They could have used their technology to magnetize the doors shut, or something like that. She couldn't use her dimension jump; it still needed fifteen or so minutes to recharge. If Jack's vortex manipulator was working, they might be able to materialize in the TARDIS, but what good would that really do? It wasn't like they could just run away from the Dalek Empire.

Enraged, Jack stepped towards the red commanding Dalek. "Let her out!"

"This is not of Dalek origin."

"Well, Jack didn't do it, and it certainly wasn't me!" Rose said, turning to face the enemy. "Do the math; and see who that leaves?"

"Negative!" it barked, rolling closer to them. Jack and Rose quickly stepped back a few steps. "This is Time Lord treachery! Nevertheless, the TARDIS is a weapon and it will be destroyed."

A trapdoor opened under the Doctor's ship, and it plummeted down into the unknown. Rose's single, very human heart nearly leapt into her throat. Donna was still in there. _He_ was still in there, unconscious and unable to help.

"Donna!" Jack called, reaching out for the trapdoor.

"Where did you send it?" Rose yelled at the Dalek, feeling the blood pumping wildly through her veins. "Bring it back!"

**~8~**

Donna shrieked as fire bursting from the TARDIS's floor licked at the tips of her feet. She tried to stand up, but the moment she reached her knees, another section of the ship exploded, knocking her back on her side. So instead, she crawled around the console, aching to find solace in one of the few places that wasn't aflame yet. She coughed hard, trying to get the acrid smoke out of her lungs.

She felt lost and confused, and not just because of the TARDIS blowing up around her. Everything was changing so quickly, rippling into a completely different form right around her. Rose was back, the universe was in grave danger, and the Doctor wasn't there to save it, because so was he.

Donna crawled over to the Doctor's limp body. He'd fallen off the jump seat during the fall; they had a very hard landing. As she dazedly hovered over him, she couldn't help but feel absolutely _useless_. If she really were important, as Rose seemed to think she was, why couldn't she help him? Why didn't she know what to do?

"Doctor! Come back... _Please_!" she shouted. "Don't you die! Don't you do that to me...!"

As expected, there was no response.

Then, she heard that rhythmic, pounding sound again. It was all she could hear. There was power in it. Slowly, her eyes trailed around the exploding TARDIS, only to land on the metal and glass jar that held the Doctor's hand. The more she looked at it, the more she felt magnetized to it, like the heartbeat _came_ from it, and she had to touch it...

While she crawled closer, the Doctor slowly began to stir awake at her side. The long strand of hair that covered his forehead flopped to the ground. His vision was blurry, but he could see the receptacle with his hand, and he could see Donna, reaching out. His eyes went wide with panic.

"_No_," he gasped for breath, "Don't... touch it... D-Donna, _don't!_"


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter Five_

Her mind more fuzzy than it ought to be, Donna reached for the jar. Her fingers were about to brush against its smooth glass surface when she heard a weak, distant voice calling out.

"Don't... touch it..."

It was like a quiet whisper pressed lightly against her conscience, and was almost completely drowned out by the heartbeat in her head. Maybe it _was_ her conscience...

"D-Donna, don't!"

The voice was louder this time. More urgent, strained with worry. The muscles in her arm twitched, somehow yearning to listen to this little voice and obey. However, the unknown force that kept her mind latched to the hand in the jar continued to pull at her.

In fact, she could almost feel the heat emanating from it when a body crashed into her left side and knocked her away from the odd glass receptacle. The back of her head slammed into the bottom of the console. She was woozy for a brief moment, and her lungs felt useless, like they had shrunk to the size of kidney beans. Blinking rapidly, Donna Noble returned to full control, and cringed as pain blossomed from where she hit her head. Suddenly fearing she'd injured herself, she reached behind and carefully ran her fingers through her hair. Luckily, her fingers came back with no blood.

"Doctor?!" she called, her eyes now watering from the smoke.

Somehow navigating around the fuzzy red spots scattered upon her vision, her weary eyes fell upon the Doctor, who was sprawled in a pile of lanky limbs at her side. His right hand was pressed firmly against the jar, and his body was convulsing uncontrollably. His features were held in a state of pure shock, his mouth open in an 'o'. She gasped. The same flowing, golden energy that had exploded from his hands and head before he changed was now flowing _between_ his body and his old severed hand.

Donna yelped as the glass jar exploded into thousands of tiny pieces, and covered her face with her arm to keep the shards from hurting her.

The Doctor fell backwards, gasping, and clutched his arm like it was a lifeline. As he started to hesitantly pull himself to his knees, his friend wrapped her arms tight around his neck. His mouth briefly screwed up in surprise, but nonetheless, he quickly returned the hug with a smile.

"I was starting to think you were dead," she said with a small sob, and buried her chin into his shoulder.

"No, no," he corrected, gently rubbing circles into her back to calm her down. "Not dead, just a few complications with my regeneration."

"But what do you _mean_, complications?"

He pulled away suddenly, leapt to his feet in one jump, and began to explain, more with his hands than with his words. "_Complications_, you, you know, every _possibility_ or _moment_ or _circumstance_ that makes life just a tad more difficult. In a vain attempt to keep my own face, I wasted a large sum of regenerative energy. And it almost killed me. For good. My body just needed to to settle for a while. I should be fine now. Actually," he muttered, and glanced worriedly around the rocking, burning TARDIS. "Scratch that last one. That might be conditional..."

The entire ship shook, nearly knocking the pair off their feet. Almost half of the remaining lights burst, and shards of glass and metal flew into the middle of the console room.

"Well, come on! Let's fly out of here!" Donna urged, pulling at his arm.

The Doctor didn't respond immediately. His eyes were glassy as he stared at the floor.

"Donna...?

"What?"

"We forgot about something."

"_What?_"

His adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "My hand."

She followed his pointing finger to the floor of the metal platform. Her jaw dropped. The Doctor's severed hand had fallen there, but it was t_witching_. The same golden energy she saw when he regenerated surrounded it like an aura. She wheeled around to face him, arms outstretched.

"What, what did you do?!" Donna shouted. She looked back down and watched, mesmerized, as the energy from the hand stretched outwards into the shape of a body. A man's body. Then, in the blink of an eye, the energy dissipated, and the man shot upwards into a sitting position. Both Donna and the Doctor nearly jumped.

Wait... Impossibly unruly brown hair, sideburns, and those endlessly expressive eyebrows? She gaped at him in complete shock and surprise. The equally shocked and surprised Doctor, the one who she'd known as her confidant and friend, gaped back at her. How was this even possible?

"Oops..." the floppy haired Doctor standing next to her whispered.

Donna still couldn't overcome her pure shock. It was the face of her best friend, one she though she'd lost. Yet here he was, reborn from a hand. "It's you!"

"Oh, yes!" her Doctor exclaimed with a tilt of his head.

Just as soon as a smile began to brighten her face, a cursory glance downwards took it away. He was naked. Fabulous, thanks. Now she needed to scrub her brain out. In her peripheral vision, she watched the new, floppy haired Doctor look, cover his own eyes with the back of one hand, and then peek again, as if the mad Time Lord hadn't seen his own body naked a billion times before.

"Ohhhhh..." he groaned quietly, still actively deciding if he should look away or not.

"You're naked," she slowly pointed out, averting her eyes.

Her Doctor's brows furrowed. Donna assumed he didn't have to look twice to figure that out, unlike the crazy mop of hair next to her. "Oh, yes," he muttered. When the TARDIS shook again, he rocketed to his feet and circled around, seeming heartbroken at the destruction. "Never mind that, what happened in here? Donna, are we _crashing_?"

The floppy haired Doctor (Donna still wasn't sure how else she could refer to each of them- it wasn't as if she could call them _Doctor One _and _Doctor Two_...) stumbled to the console, and managed to avoid the tongue of fire that attempted to lick his feet. He hastily spun the monitor to his side and began poking around.

"If this ol' brain is still rattling on in the right directions," he mused out loud, "i-it appears... that the emergency alignment couplings are still intact, so we couldn't be."

Then, the time ship jolted again, this time so violently that it caught everyone off guard. The two Doctors ducked from an arc of sparks that flew from the top of the time rotor. A thick plastic-lined wire snapped and swung down at Donna from above. She shrieked, only narrowly missing it.

"I've had a slight change of opinion," the floppy haired Doctor said, laughing nervously, and then flung himself back to the console. "We're... sorta-crashing! Get those shields back up!" he instructed his counterpart with a point of his finger.

"I've tried, it's no use!" he shouted, busy with controls of the TARDIS that Donna didn't recognize from her flying lessons. "The power's been drained!"

"No, no, no! If we don't fly her away this second, the outer shell will be destabilized! Hold on!"

Working in tandem, the two Doctors wound around the console, pushing levers and winding dials like some sort of cosmic waltz. Slowly, Donna could hear the glorious sound of the time rotor, moaning and working at full power. She glanced up and couldn't help but smile as she watched the rods inside the rotor bob up and down. They were dematerializing. They were _safe_.

When the lights on the domed walls of the TARDIS's console room stopped blowing, and she was certain that they had left whatever hell they had fallen into, she let out a large breath she didn't know she was holding. Unfortunately, one gawk around the place told her that her problems were far from over. Fire still forked from random crannies in the floor. But more than that, there were now _two_ Doctors with her. _Two_. How does that happen? _What_ happened? Are both of them the real, proper Doctor now? Can you grow from a hand and still manage to be the proper Doctor? So many questions plagued her mind, all at once.

"Is there a fire extinguisher we can use, or somethin'?" she asked, quickly moving as far away from the fire as she could.

"Just wait and see," both Doctors said simultaneously, and then pointed at each other in mutual amusement.

She gawked at _them_ this time, but nonetheless listened and waited for a few seconds. There was soon a little _puff_, and a cloud of milky white gas filtered through the room.

"It's a gas mixture," her Doctor explained automatically, as the fire around the console room slowly flickered out of existence. "Most of it's Zypheron gas, first discovered far in your future, in the Cushing Nebula. Not only is it very good at putting out fires, but it's also breathable by a high percentage of species."

Donna let this information sink in for a moment, as she watched the gas disappear into the same unknown place it came from. She could always count on the Doctor to enlighten her with an interesting fact about something in the universe, even in troubling times. With all that had happened today, his mini science lessons were more than welcome. They calmed her.

Her Doctor continued to roam clothesless around the console room, messing with this or that, adjusting a dial on the console, and keeping a wary eye on the other Doctor. He'd been staring at him a lot, she noticed. It didn't seem to be out of jealousy or anger, but more out of curiosity and confusion, like he were trying to figure him out.

When he finally walked around to her side of the console, she couldn't hold her thoughts in anymore.

"Are you _actually_ going to put some clothes on, or are you just gonna parade around the TARDIS stark naked?" she asked him, averting her eyes again.

Wordlessly, the floppy haired Doctor unfastened the buttons of his suit jacket and tossed it over to his counterpart.

"Thanks," he said quietly. He then set about to tying it securely around his waist, utilizing it like a loincloth. Donna leaned up against the console, next to where he stood.

"I'm so..." she began, but then stopped. Whatever she was going to say hung in the air, unspoken. She could never say it. Not to his face.

"So what?" he asked, and leaned on the side of the console as well, looking at her intently. Looking at her like he cared, because he always did. Sometimes Donna felt like she didn't appreciate that facet of the Doctor enough. Besides her granddad, she didn't receive that kind of care much growing up.

She contemplated telling him for a second, but something held her back. "No, what does it matter?" she finally said, rubbing her forehead wearily with the base of her hand. "I thought you were gone forever, and now here I am talking to you. I've seen so many impossible things, but I don't even know what's happening anymore, really."

They both peered at the Doctor on the far most side of the console, the one who still wore the shirt and trousers of the man that came before him. The Doctor who had been Donna's best friend for more than a year and a half now tilted his head towards her, and began whispering in her ear.

"If it makes you feel any better, for once in my life, neither can I."

**~8~**

_{A few minutes earlier, on the Dalek Crucible}_

Rose never wanted to watch live footage of the TARDIS burning, and yet she found herself magnetized to the screen anyways. Her emotions were in a tangle. She honestly didn't know what she might do if they died.

One of the Dalek soldiers barked mocking words as if in glee.

"Total TARDIS destruction in ten rels," it announced. "Nine, eight, seven..."

_Come on, Doctor, _she thought, mentally urging them to save themselves. _Come on, Donna! Fly the TARDIS away, anything to let us know you're still alive!_

(She briefly realized in the moment that this was the first time she'd referred to this new man as 'the Doctor'. A small feeling of guilt grew inside her- did it have to take a life threatening situation for her to figure that out?- but she managed to ignore it for now.)

On the screen, the time ship continued to bob in the flames. As the Dalek soldier finished counting, it fell completely in. She gasped.

"...Two, one. The TARDIS has been destroyed."

Still holding a shard of hope in her heart, Rose squinted at the screen, waiting for something, anything, to occur. For any sign that they were alive and well... There was nothing. The TARDIS was nowhere to be seen. As she realized what had happened, what _must_ have happened, her blood began to boil and her heart began to cry out.

After all they'd been through, how could he be gone now? Such a wonderful, beautiful man, beloved by so many in the universes, and his flame was put out in a snap of one's fingers. She almost couldn't bear to think about it now- all those days, all those adventures... all of her love- and now, any future she could have ever had with him was cut tragically short. He was one in an infinite sum of people. There would never be another like him. And Donna, poor Donna, was lost in vain before she could understand how truly incredible she was. She'd only known her for a short time, but it was enough. A vast, empty void began to grow inside her, becoming so large she felt like she could fall through it.

A comforting hand fell upon her shoulder. It was Jack's. To her, his presence was the only thing keeping her strong right now. Was this why the Doctor kept seeking out companions, time and time again? So he couldn't feel the pain? If this was only a fraction of the pain he had felt after losing his own planet, his own _species_- then she had not a clue what in the universe could've inspired him to keep living.

The commander Dalek moved closer, probably more confident now that they had succeeded in breaking her. "Now tell me, Doctor. What do you feel? Anger? Sorrow? Despair?"

She didn't bother with a reply. It wasn't like the Daleks deserved one, after all the agony they'd sent her through over the years. Rebelliously, a single tear she didn't want to show answered their question for her.

"If emotions are so important, surely we have enhanced you?"

Behind her, Jack's face twisted in rage.

"Yeah?" he said, taking a handgun Rose didn't know he'd brought out of his pocket. "Feel this!"

He shot at the red commander Dalek, aiming for the eyestalk. The bullet was close, but not close enough. It bounced off the eyestalk's rim, dealing next to no damage.

"Exterminate!"

Rose didn't need to think twice about what this would mean. The Dalek shot back, and Jack Harkness, her longtime friend, fell to the ground in a limp pile of limbs. Her heart caught in her throat. How could this be really happening?

"You MURDERED him!" she screeched, complete unfiltered rage building up inside of her.

"Escort the Doctor to the vault," the Dalek commanded, brushing off her words like they were nothing. For a Dalek, there was no doubt that they _were_ nothing. "She is the plaything of Davros now."

Waiting tears burned in her eyes. She felt like her façade was already fragmenting. How long could she stay resilient in the Doctor's shoes? This wasn't like the Battle of Torchwood, where her mum and Pete were waiting for her on the other side of the void. Here, she had nothing. No Doctor, no Donna, no Jack, no family, nothing. For the first time in her life, she was completely and utterly alone.

Was this the hell the Doctor lived in?

* * *

**This was one of the most difficult things I've written, if only because I had troubles figuring out how I should refer to each Doctor, writing as Donna. That's a conflict that the characters themselves might have to face in future chapters. **

**The exact effects and consequences of the Doctor pushing Donna away from the jar and touching it himself will be explained soon... (Although some are more obvious than others, wink wink!)**

**Thanks once again for the amazing support! I'm truly shocked how quickly this story hit 100 followers. Stay classy, everyone!**


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